Plants onboard?

Conachair

Conachair

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Anyone have success growing herbs onboard? I've read they don't do well but it would be nice to have some fresh basil for the salad. What success rate do you have? A moment ago i was just interested in ones you could eat but already thinking a bit of growing green would make the cabin look much more homely. Any hardy breeds that are difficlt to kill?
 
One of the first things we do on arriving in Turkey is to buy a pot of basil in local market. With the help of occasional Babybio it seems to flourish for our 8 week voyage up and down the Aegean coast. On leaving we pass it on to another boat
 
There was a long report last year on keeping mint onboard a vessel. Final results may have been slightly skewed by the over-enthusiastic pruning. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
I grow a selection of herbs onboard and they have voyaged with us across many thousands of ocean miles!

Currently we have chives, oregano, basil but when we are in more remote places(currently in a marina in Guatemala) I also grow a trough of leaf greens.

They survive pretty well for up to 5-6 days at sea( on a passage0 but loner than that they start to look a little seasick!
When we are sailing they occupy the forward heads where they jam nicely in the shower area and it is easy to water them.
At anchor they live jammed behind the cockpit. All works very well!

I suggest lettuce leaf basil, a fast growing, huge leaved variet that has done well for us, galc chives are good too.
We sow a collection of salad leaves that includes Tokyo Bernena, I think its a variety of rape and I hope I have the name right!
There is a picture of our plants at the following link!
http://gerryantics.blogspot.com/2007/09/catching-up.html

Good luck, I have really enjoyed having fresh herbs and salad aboard, and have been the object of envy in many anchorages!
One tip, if you are in the tropics make sure your soil is heat treated or you may bring aboard some nasty bugs!


www.gerryantics.blogspot.com
 
We grow Basil from seeds. Works very well but don't let salt water get to the plants and they don't like over or under watering. They also don't like being below decks on long passages, which is why we carry seeds to start again.
 
How about bean sprouts? not tried it at sea but heard several reports that it works and gives fresh, high vitimin food does not need much light or looking after and only needs a peice of blotting paper to grow on.
 
Great blog Gerry.

I bought a pot of basil in Siracusa market that survived six weeks of regular pruning.

That lived behing the galley sink, handy for watering, and the limited sunlight persuaded it to sprout profusely.

I certainly haven't gone to the lengths you have - still the Med isn't quite as unmercantile as Central America, I guess.
 
I've grown bean sprouts for a couple of years now and they are very simple. I started with a sprouting tray and seeds bought on E-Bay, but find that they sprout perfectly well in any container - just rinse them once a day and they take between 2 and 5 days to full growth. Almost anything sprouts - lentils bought in a supermarket for instance, so we always have fresh produce aboard.
 
Sprouting trays are just shallow (1 inch deep) plastic trays with tiny holes to drain away the water and leave the seeds, and they stack one on another. No blotting paper needed, just water and something to sprout.
I now just use ordinary jars, glass or plastic (old butter/soft cheese containers, pate jars etc), soak the seeds, lentils or beans overnight, then rinse once a day.
 
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